Wk 1 Reading...Archigram + Indeterminancy

In the 1960s Archigram were concerned with the idea of indeterminacy. As quoted in Sadler, Archigram's usage of the term referred to "Of varying evaluation. Not one answer. Open-endedness."

Some excerpts from the Sadler reading...
Sadler, S., 2005. Beyond Architecture. In. Archigram: Architecture Without Architecture, Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. pp90-138) 

p.94..."it would be simpler to hand the control levers of the environment straight over to society, and let people determine forms and spaces directly. Apart from which, the moment one made a commitment to an architectural program, everything was frozen-the architectural solution (the building) and the social desire that had brought it into being, which might be nothing more than a passing fad. The program was just another sort of idealism. The imperative for Archigram's generation was to create "open ends"...an architecture that expressed its inhabitants' supposed desire for continuous change."

p.95..."As Archigram put it in 1966, 'buildings with no capacity to change can only become slums or ancient monuments:' Programmatic modernism seemed ever less suitable to postwar liberal democracies, and its abandonment helped to rupture ClAM, the guiding body of modern architecture until the 1950s. Thanks in particular to the work of the Smithsons and their colleagues in Team 10, modernists were forced to consider, however superficially, how human communities might actually function, rather than how they should function. Cook's sometime tutor John Voelcker concisely summarized the issue in Team 10's Draft Framework for ClAM in 1956, contrasting the 1920s thinking of Bauhaus director WaIter Gropius with the 1950s thinking of Team 10's Jacob Bakema: "To oversimplify, the idea of 'social responsibility' (Gropius) was directive, 'Moral Function' (Bakema) is libertarian in that the onus placed on the architect is to seek out the existing structure of the community and to allow this structure to develop in positive directions. Induction instead of deduction'"

So has Archigram's concept of indeterminancy been realised in any form in today's world? 

In the virtual world, I would say it definitely has. Structures/frameworks are put in place eg social networks, app products and the power is with the user to creates their own content or apps which then spawn other ideas and technologies which were not originally envisaged. 

Low-cost 3d printing technology could relate to indeterminancy in that it is a form of bottom-up design and manufacturing. Instead of large companies controlling and deciding what is developed and what is right for the consumer, individuals now have the power to create their own objects (albeit rudimentary at the moment).