Between 1972 and 82, I indulged in some experiments in representational form. The ideas were three:

• A basic cognitive vocabulary consists of visual forms, specifically relationships in one, two or three dimensions at least. The creation of artificial environments (built space) can utilize those laws to prompt or reinforce designed behavior. In other words, as a matter of design beyond style, a talented designer can create a basic set of relationships subliminally perceived. These can prompt basic behavior. I determined to master this vocabulary.
• As a separate matter, others before me had a profound respect for materials, and developed details which annotate the more fundamental form noted above. Though in the realm of style not form, it is what people consciously read. We attempted a countervocabulary to express humor, irony and sometimes relatively profound aspirations.
• As a third orthogonal matter, we had clients. We worked to have everything that would be read by them appear to be precisely what they would do if spatially literate.

These three ideas were layered. The real work was to understand and manipulate cognitive form. As a practical matter, we layered an annotative style over this, based on material-driven architectural conventions. And on top of all that each project had a visible personality based on the client’s world.

This little report shows some images, annotated with brief thoughts on projects. After 1982, the research focused on multidimensional representational spaces, work described elsewhere.

Note: this work was not sponsored by any federal agency.