This paper presents two methods of architectural conception and articulation based on the idea of type. One method conceives of architecture as a predetermined entity, claiming that architecture has a plan, a programme that determines its emergence based on a specific type prior to its coming into being. The other method, based on digital design processes and genetic algorithms, focuses on the procedures of architectural becoming. The essay claims that while the latter method attempts to release the emergence of the architectural entity from predetermined formal or functional typological definitions, it in fact suggests new ways of defining the historical idea of architectural types. Based on genotypic and phenotypic procedures, the latter method bases the evolution of the architectural type on predetermined typological information, yet at the same time it allows the emergence of the architectural entity as part of undetermined flows. As such, it proposes a new temporal structure in architecture – one that is based on flows and motions.

As the editor of TRI, as well as one of the participants in the collective research project presented here, I want to add a few words in closing this issue of the journal rather than writing an editorial. In thinking about the future we are not only addressing the notions of emergence and futurity as they are constructed, configured and established within the aesthetic fields of theatre, performance and the arts. We are also – and not only implicitly – thinking about the future of the humanistic disciplines within our societies and our academic institutions, and in particular about the future possibilities of the younger generation of scholars who have decided to devote their own future to the study and research of these fields, developing their individual talents and creativity. It is unnecessary to reiterate that we are in the middle (and I hope this is not just the beginning) of an extremely severe crisis of these fields resulting from economic constraints as well as inherent suspicions towards the arts in particular. And without the necessary institutional and governmental support the humanities as well as our cultures will become impoverished beyond recognition.