The argument for the argument: Revisiting the architecture machine

The argument for the argument, that is, the defense of the computable quantity, has had a profound impact on the contemporary understanding of design practice. In this paper, I explore the history of the architectural- computational 'argument' to uncover a generally accepted yet poorly understood collusion between architectural and urban theory, structuralist semantics, and computation. From arguments about the machine to the mechanics of language, and from the language of architecture to the architecture machine, the argument for the argument has radically transformed contemporary design practices, but neither the history nor the theory behind these developments has been critically examined. My own argument seeks to build upon this nexus a hypothetical construct - a post-structuralist computer - as a provocation of sorts: a challenge to contemporary computational work in architecture to critically and philosophically address its current trajectories.