Machine-oriented Architecture: Oikos and Ecology

In this chapter, following his ontology that focuses on what it means to give an account of something, Levi R. Bryant not only defines building as a machine, but building as a void and an enclosure where architecture operates in, through and on it. After elaborating on his argument that all of being is composed of machines, calling this metaphysics or ontology ‘machine-oriented ontology’, he goes onto sketching the outlines of a machine-oriented architecture and the ways in which distributions of space operate on bodies, create subjectivities and form communities. He concludes by asking what a revolutionary enclosure would be to connect it with our ability to create enclosures that act upon us and potentially enhance our becoming and movement.